Chapter 3 Dean #2
She drags herself free and continues working. Get him fixed. Get him out. “I’m under the hood often enough to ensure she stays healthy. My father taught me well. Now let’s circle back to my first question; why were you on the road tonight?”
I grab one of her braids and study the mahogany locks. The purple elastic. The subtle blonde highlights interspersed between the rest. “I was exercising.”
With narrowed eyes, she stares down at my legs. My jeans. And at the end, my choice of footwear. “Do you often exercise in boots, Mr. Warner?” She swings a fast hand up and fists my beanie, dragging it off to reveal my short, almost black hair. “And ski masks?”
“The local police department has confirmed we’re searching for three separate men in connection with the slew of jewelry store heists over the last few weeks.
” The chick on the television presses a finger to her ear while someone feeds her information in real time.
“Authorities assure us they’re closing in on these bandits, and thanks to an anonymous tip, tonight’s planned robbery, which would have been the largest to date, was unsuccessful. ”
Anna’s eyes narrow to deadly slits in my peripherals, while headlights flash across the front of her house. Tires roll over gravel, and a second later, an engine cuts out.
“Shit!” From suspicious to rattled, Anna speed-wraps with a dizzying flurry of her arms, tugging my bandage extra tight so her efforts transform from support to something a little more akin to restraint.
Heavy footsteps thud on the stairs outside, then across her porch, so the vibration carries through the floor.
Panicky as she secures my bandage, Anna bounces off the couch, jostling my aching body, and snatches up the plastic bandage wrapping. She switches off her iPad with a fast swipe of her fingers and shoves both into her file box.
In the same moment, her front door handle jiggles, like whoever the fuck is visiting thinks they get to walk straight in.
“Anna?” A dude’s deep voice echoes from outside. “Hey. You in there?”
“Ah… yup!” She slings horrified eyes my way, then back to the door. To me. Then to the door again. Finally, she points a single, dangerous finger in my face. “Don’t say a word!”
“Anna?”
“Yeah! I’m coming.” She crosses her living room and whips her front door open, but when the guy on the other side—a fuckin’ plainclothes cop with a shiny silver badge on his hip and a shinier gun perched right beside it—attempts to stride in without an invitation, she steps in his way and leans against the door.
Using a tone she’s yet to use on me, she becomes a wolf in a sex kitten’s clothing. “Hi, Carter. What’s up?”
“What’s…” He’s taller than her by an easy foot, which makes it entirely too simple for him to look over her head and meet my eyes. His narrow, jealousy and fiery possessiveness pointed directly, and dangerously, at me. “Ah… You have company?”
“Oh, him?” She waves me off so fucking easily.
So aloof. Never mind the fact I’m the victim in this messy clusterfuck.
“Yeah. I do. W-what are you doing here, Carter?” She closes the door half an inch, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame.
“I don’t believe we’ve made any plans for tonight. ”
“Thought I’d drop by and see if you wanted to hang out.” He can’t help himself; his eyes jump back to mine. “Who’s your friend, Anna?”
How does one introduce a bruised and battered stranger to the cops without admitting they ran them down with their sexy fuckin’ Road Runner?
“Dean.” Aching from top to toe, I push off the couch with a deep, chest-clenching groan, but as I turn, like introducing myself to this prick might somehow help our current situation, I’m forced to stop and pray my dizziness won’t send me sprawling. “Shit.”
Gasping, Anna shoves away from the door and sprints across the room, slipping under my arm and plastering her body against mine. “You’re not supposed to get up, dummy.”
Carter glides through the unguarded door and comes to a stop just four feet from where we stand.
This possessive, arrogant motherfucker meets my eyes and strokes the handle of his gun, clearly unimpressed by the fact I’m draped over the woman he considers his.
“Dean?” He offers his hand and leaves it hanging in the space between us. “Dean who?”
“Warner,” Anna throws in. “He’s my big brother.”
Your brother?
Surprised, I meet her gaze.
Really?
“I’ve told you about him before, right?” Nervously, Anna doubles down on her lies. “Same dad, different moms. He’s visiting for the weekend.”
“Your brother?” Skeptical as fuck, Detective Dickface looks me up and down. “Why do you have different surnames if you have the same dad?”
“Because I have our dad’s last name,” she explains. “He has his mom’s. We’re actually in the middle of something, so if you could—”
“What happened to you?” Carter’s jet-black stare leaves an odd tingle in the base of my spine. It’s familiarity. A kinship of sorts, but the kind constructed in Hades. “You look beat to shit, Dean Warner.”
“Uh…” Desperate, Anna searches for her next lie. “He… uh…”
“I’m a professional athlete.” I drag my good arm from around her shoulders and take Detective Deplorable’s hand.
Shaking. Squeezing. “Fighter. Just finished up my most recent tournament, actually. Now I have time off for the holidays. Figured I’d spend that time with my baby sister.
” I drop his hand and fist Anna’s braid instead.
Tugging her head back, I force her to stay still long enough for me to drop a kiss on her temple.
“I hate going so long between visits, so the instant my last fight ended, I hightailed it to her couch. Exactly where I intend to stay for the next little while.” I flash a dangerous, wolfish grin at the narrow-eyed prick.
“It’s funny though, cos Anna and I talk about everything, but I don’t remember ever hearing about you. ”
Anna’s breath catches in a squeaking gasp.
“Are you trying to ask my sweet baby sister out on a date or something, Officer…?”
“Detective,” he grunts, his nostrils twitching. “Carter James.”
“Detective James.” Fuck you, Big Dog. She doesn’t want you, bro.
“I understand she’s the prettiest peach in this entire state, but I’m here now, and I intend to dedicate the next week exclusively to brother-sister bonding time.
” I tug her in and pin her against my side.
“I get so little of it, ya know?” Taking a step forward, I force Anna to move with me, and him to move the fuck back.
“Call her in January. She might be available then.”
“But…” From angry possession to a sad little whipped puppy, Carter’s eyes jump to Anna’s. “Mel’s wedding is coming up, and I thought we could—”
Anna slips out from beneath my arm, scooping his up instead and leading the poor schmuck toward the door. “I already told you, Carter, I don’t need a date for that. As the maid-of-honor, I’ll be busy for the whole event. Bringing a date would be rude.”
“I don’t mi—”
I exhale a long, pained hiss and draw both sets of eyes. Whipped puppy versus pitiable puppy. Let’s play. “Ouch! Anna.” I make a show of holding my bad arm. “I really should get this finished before swelling sets in.”
Carter’s eyes darken. “When did you say your last fight was?”
“I’ll call you sometime!” Anna pushes the fucker onto her porch and into the biting wind, and though he puts his hand out to stop her from closing the door in his face, she’s fast and determined.
She whips it around and slams it with a noisy, wall-shaking boom, then she spins on her heels and plasters her back to the wood. “Oh. My. God.”
“You’re just a regular little liar, aintcha, Anna Maxwell?
” Chuckling, I limp back to the couch and drop onto the cloud-like cushions with a harrumph.
Part agonizing hiss, part too-tired sigh.
Closing my eyes, I release the last of my energy and slump onto my side.
“Dude wants to fuck you so bad, and you’re drier than the Sahara Desert every time he looks at you. ”
“Crude. Rude.” She strides away from the door and leans over the back of the couch. I don’t bother opening my eyes, but I fucking feel her. “Wildly inappropriate. We don’t even know each other, so what makes you so confident you can say such a disgusting thing?”
“Don’t know each other?” I swing my good arm out and grab her narrow, pulse-pounding wrist. With a fast yank, I tear her over the back of the couch and down until her hundred pounds crash against my body, crushing the ribs already bruised and—possibly—a little broken.
“I thought you were my sister?” I drag my too-tired eyes open and snag the television remote.
Flicking away from the news and onto something else, anything else, I catch the first Hunger Games movie already started, so I hit play and continue where Anna last left off.
“Detective SmallDick wants to date my baby sister.” I rest my hand on her hip, exactly where a brother should not touch his sister.
“But you have absolutely no desire to go anywhere near him.” Tossing the remote, I twist half an inch and search her wary eyes.
“You could just say no, ya know? It’s pretty simple. ”
“It’s not simple!”
She fights to climb free of my grip, so I grab her braid and yank her back down again.
Landing with a thwump, she jams her fist into my side and searches desperately for an escape. I mean, we did just meet thirty minutes ago! “I work with him,” she grunts. “A lot. Our professional relationship would become awkward if I harmed his ego by formally declining his dinner invitations.”
“More awkward than this current game where he chases, you run away, and I become the big brother who likes how his sister looks in tight jeans?”
She shoves up and reveals pale cheeks, her eyes scouring mine and tightening as I walk my fingers just a little south of her hipbone.
“W-were you serious about being a fighter? Carter’s a detective, and you gave your real name, so if he went back to work and looked you up…?”
“He’d find a dude who loses only about half the time.” I flash a bright, possibly-charming smile. “Although I didn’t just finish a tournament. Technically, I was on my way to a tournament, so if he looks too deep and runs the numbers, he might pick that apart and get a little pissy.”
“O-on your way?” she stammers, her pulse thrumming wildly against the delicate skin on her neck. “So, you fight for a living? That means you’re pretty good at hurting people, huh?”
I’ve seen this look before, the one that says a woman is terrified. Guilt bites at my intestines, so instead of pulling her down once more, I release her completely.
You’re safe with me, pretty girl. I promise.
“I hurt my opponent.” I close my eyes to combat the dizziness determined to take me out after an evening from hell. “It’s a sport, Anna. It’s legit. I don’t hurt anyone outside of that.”
“When do you have to be wherever you need to be?” She clumsily climbs off the couch, stopping in the gap between me and the coffee table. “You’ll leave tomorrow to get there?”
“No.” The ibuprofen finally takes hold, minimizing the worst of my pain.
Sort of. Not really. “Can’t fight with a busted shoulder, which means I forfeit this year, I guess.
Sucks.” Pain and nausea keep me company, joining exhaustion and bone-deep weariness, as I float toward unconsciousness.
“Can’t make a living in the cage if I don’t even compete. ”